Sandy

[notrosecolored]

Scott said he'd be there with information in five minutes. He was at the door, fully dressed and with his glasses replaced by a visor, in four. It took him that long to grab a cup of coffee and walk to the lounge where Sandy was waiting.

He got his debriefing on the move, and directly into his brain.

He felt better for having been looped in, however perfunctorily.

He walked in, and stayed standing up. Looked the guy over, and wondered why the hell this kid was the recon specialist and then moved on.

"New mutant manifested in Chicago. She's sitting in a jail cell, supposedly for her protection. We're going to get her. How long do you need to pack?"

Comments

[granularity]

He patted his phone in his pocket with one hand as the other swept up the cards. That was a natural movement if Scott ever saw one; cards had been a frequent pastime. Especially during his time with the All Star Squadron.

"Just this. Of my... considerable talents, telepathy is not one of them."

[notrosecolored]

Scott had played cards. It hadn't been a serious past time in years, but he knew the game and he knew how to play and he was god damned good at math and probability, so he was leaving it at that and just playing to pass the time.

He stopped rearranging his cards to look at Sandy, crease in his forehead. "You've lost me."

Not entirely, Sandy hadn't. Scott suspected he knew but the man was either going to tell him on his own or not.

[granularity]

He pulled out the phone and was good enough not to wiggle it. He just tapped the side with his finger.

"This thing is made of those materials I talked about. That's why it doesn't just stay behind when I phase through a wall or into the earth. Then I can call."

Nothing too complicated.

"The dreams aren't... it's not a psychic ability. It's different. That's a legacy left to me by my mentor."

A legacy and a responsibility. And a weight.

[notrosecolored]

"Communicate with them. Through the phone."

That was simple enough that it had flown right over Scott's head. He'd really, really turned that into something else, based on more base and broad levels of communication.

Like, oh, turning into a pile of dust and not being able to speak to anyone, or having the telepathic ability to get through, either.

This was better.

Probably.

"I've spent a lot of time around telepaths. I'm not sure what to say about the legacy left to you by your mentor, but given your lack of sleep I'm inclined to offer condolences. I know it's not a psychic ability, but it might be worthwhile to talk to Charles about. ...or to be careful to keep him away from."

God, how was he only 20 something years old? He felt like he'd lived at least four lifetimes himself, and he had nothing on Sandy.

[granularity]

"No."

That was the first time Sandy seemed firm, solid. Unwilling to bend. No. He wasn't letting any psychic anywhere near his head. There were secrets in there, secrets he was unwilling to let anyone know.

Horrors he was unwilling to inflict on anyone else.

He seemed to realize after a moment that he might have come off as somewhat gruff and he took a breath to take another sip of coffee and hold up a hand in what he hoped was a request for apology.

"It's... best. If I stay away from psychics. For everyone's sake."

[notrosecolored]

Scott wasn't fussed by how gruff Sandy had been, or the answer. He had offered 'or stay away from him' for a reason. It was one of those things that could be enormously helpful, or terrifically bad. Sometimes, it was both depending on which end of it you were on. Sometimes it was just bad for everyone.

He shook his head after a long moment.

"It's your mind and your business." He was a control freak, but only about himself. His team. His cause. Protective of his people. Aware of consequences and used to making decisions. That didn't extend to the personal. There was a limited scope, for all that some might not seen it unless they stopped to realize how little he meddled. He didn't even mingle.

But.

"You need to be aware, though, that I am extremely vulnerable to telepaths and psychics - mind control. I always have been, and I'm more so now. There are work arounds and I use them, but every last one of them comes down to Charles. I realize that isn't the sort of thing you're concerned about, but it's something you need to know and account for. He's going to have at least passing contact with my mind, even if it's only to lock down or bury information."

Worth a heads up. He liked this guy.

[granularity]

"I don't have a problem with them," he said, keeping his voice slow, even. "But there are things in my head I don't feel right inflicting on anyone."

And he wasn't sure, in all honesty, how safe it was because of the conduit within him to Dream. Daniel. Even someone experienced...

If there was something he knew, it was that his pale companion was beyond human comprehension. And he wouldn't chance anyone, especially not someone willing to try and help, given what could happen.

And then there was the Velvet Cage and the web of lies he'd woven about his time there that he never, ever intended to share with anyone. Wes didn't deserve that. Wes could never know, and the only way to guarantee that was to keep it firmly inside his own head. The man might be dead, but if he knew anything about the world, he knew that meant Absolutely Nothing when it came down to it.

"It's bad enough I have to live with it."

And he refused to let go of it. It was still years, decades of his life. It was still Wes's visits, the shift of sunlight through an empty room, thoughts he'd had and beliefs he'd considered. It was why he was biologically 25 but he didn't feel that way and he wasn't sure he was comfortable with being someone else. Someone genuinely younger.

[notrosecolored]

"I know." No, he didn't, but he knew he didn't. He rewound and clarified. "I understand what you're saying." For a lot of reasons, actually.

That was level as could be, as he discarded two of his five cards and drew from the deck. Then he stopped and looked at Sandy.

"We all have our demons and ghosts. How you choose to live with yours is up to you. Besides, I'm pretty sure Charles has enough sense not to go messing around with that." Not unless he were cornered and desperate and Jesus Christ why was his mind sliding off toward Jean, constantly? He was seeing connections that weren't really there.

He shook his head sharply, trying to shake it off.

"I'll just keep supplying coffee."

[granularity]

He finally considered his cards, threw in three, and drew up.

"You're shaping up to be my best friend ever," he noted absently as he started sorting through his cards to assemble his hand.

[notrosecolored]

"It can't be that hard to find a decent coffee supply."

His tone was slightly dry, as he laid down what he had - which was two pairs of sevens, and not all that impressive.

"Any 7-11 can take care of you."

[granularity]

"And I've got a stash of Deathwish beans back at the brownstone. I'm not exactly a pauper," he continued, still staring and focusing on his cards.

"But you're offering coffee and not pushing. No one else has managed those two together."

Though that wasn't entirely true. His aunt Dian had always had a way about her...

"Well, not for a long time, anyway."

[notrosecolored]

"I'm allergic to pushing - breaks me out in hives."

Which was obviously, blatantly, bullshit. It was supposed to be obvious and blatantly bullshit. He was good at pulling that off in a tone that had just the slightest hint of a bite to it, though.

He shrugged one shoulder.

"I don't know you, or much about your life. I don't know what's in your head, and you aren't a member of my team. You're a fully grown adult and what you share or don't and with who isn't a call I could make, even if I wanted to. Anything you want to share, you can do it the old fashioned way - and probably have better friends to do it to, anyway."

And... he didn't want to see what that sort of sharing would do to Charles.

Besides, if he could kick Charles out of his head wholesale now? He would. Would have when Jean died. Fortunately, Charles was by and large respectful enough to stay largely out on his own.

[granularity]

"That's probably the main problem," he admitted with a sigh as he gave up on improving his hand. His eyes rose to meet Scott's as well as they could.

"To the young ones, I'm a relic and an eerie one at that. To the older ones, I'm still 16 years old and running after Wes." He shook his head and put down his two pair.

[notrosecolored]

Scott made a point of meeting Sandy's eyes, even if he couldn't see it. It tended to make conversation better, and it was a base level of respect that was simply not-optional for him in any situation that wasn't far more dire than sitting around a hotel room and waiting for sunset.

"Most of the school sees me as their teacher, their field commander, or both. Even those few who have been around since I was a kid were led by me from the start." It demanded he be separated from them a bit, and that was something he was more than used to, but until recently he'd had Jean to counterbalance that. " And no one knows what the hell to do with me now."

Another reason they were here, now, he thought.

[granularity]

"Other than send you out on milkrun missions with potential allies?" he added with a wry little twist of his lips. Then he tipped his chin to the cards.

"Come on, get the slaughter over with."

His two pair wasn't exactly stellar.

[notrosecolored]

"The last milk run I went out on ended with the jet in pieces. Maybe we're here to babysit each other."

He glanced at his hand, then pulled out two pair just slightly higher than Sandy's, so it was much of a slaughter. He left his cards on the table, though, and leaned back in his chair. He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, just for a moment, before turning back to Sandy.

"Why do the younger one's think you're creepy?"

[granularity]

"Well, it starts with wearing this all the time," he said as his mask solidified on his face for just long enough to make the point. Then it sunk back in, leaving his wry expression for Scott to see.

"I tend to haunt around the place at odd hours because of my work and my sleep schedule. And of course, the moaning and shouting and screaming that happens when I do finally get to sleep, well... add it together and I'm not exactly the happy go lucky mentor that Jesse and Rick are."

He took a moment to finish off his coffee and took another chicken finger.

"Some of them are all right with me. Courtney's got brass balls to go along with that staff of hers. Stargirl. Takes after Jack that way." And he missed Jack sorely. Jack had been one of the few who'd appreciated not just Wes but his aunt Dian, both her brilliance and her contributions to their work. And Jack had understood the mixed bag that was being a second generation hero. The weight of it and the pain of it and the pride of it. The struggle. Michael had some of that as well, but he'd chosen it. It wasn't quite the same. And he was almost as serious as Sand himself was. Jack's irreverence was probably one of the main reasons he hadn't become so dour to start with.

"And Maxine's not really afraid of anything but someone telling her to go away. But a man can only listen to the Wicked soundtrack so many times."

He took a few bites of chicken finger before continuing.

"Kara thinks it's also the fact that I only appear when something dire is going on. I guess she's not wrong but... it is what it is."

[notrosecolored]

"They sound like a pretty good group, overall." He said, as an outsider. Then again, that was basically how he judged his own group, just from not quite so far outside. "They'll get used to it if they've got enough time." Probably, though some things never stopped pushing buttons for people.

"I was going to ask you earlier: What's with the mask? What function does it serve?"

Seemed slightly odd to him, since it was all coming from Sandy, but he clearly didn't know anything close to everything.

[granularity]

He reached down to his holsters and pulled out the gas gun with a practiced flourish.

"I'm the Sandman. We're old fashioned, firmly in the no-kill camp," and he turned the gun to the side to show off the slot where he could insert his canisters. "This produces a sleeping gas, a similar formula to the one my mentor used for years. The problem with gas, however, is that it's not exactly selective as to who it works on."

Hence the mask.

"Though... I'm actually immune to it, that's not something I want people knowing. And the mask is-- the mask is--" it was clearly hard for him to find the exact words. There were plenty of words, of course. But the right ones... "the mask is part of the legacy. Not the same as Wesley's, but the visual is similar. And it helps that it's intimidating to the kind of criminal I usually deal with."

[notrosecolored]

Scott listened to the explanation, including the bit about being immune to the sleeping gas, and then all the rest. He stayed silent for a bit after Sandy was finished, too, debating whether he was going to say anything at all and poking things from a few different angles.

"I'm not sure how that translates to you wearing it all the time around your friends. You're not wearing it now." Not that it really mattered, but dammit there was some confusing logic in play and Scott hated when he couldn't get that kind of thing. It was like a sore tooth.

[granularity]

"I don't wear it in my downtime," he agreed with a nod, "but I don't exactly have much downtime."

New York was a big enough city and even then, his nightmares didn't always restrict themselves to familiar streets. He could travel almost instantly, but it was still a lot of traveling. Not to mention investigation; his dreams weren't exactly easy to parse, and when it could be anywhere, any time...

He'd mentioned he was a workaholic, hadn't he?

"Like I said, most of the new folks only see me for work, if that. Which is when I wear my mask."

[notrosecolored]

"Sounds like your presence here really isn't much of a mystery." Not that it had been for a bit. "If you want to head back, to the Mansion or your team, I can probably handle this from here."

If he didn't feel like putting up with the mechanizations, that was.

[granularity]

Sandy stiffened, just a little, and the effect was almost as if he'd been slapped. He sat up a straighter and picked up his cards to neaten them before placing them closer to Scott on the table.

He was a realist, no doubts about that. Practical, when it came to most things. But the JSA wasn't most things. And his honor and his duty, to his legacy and to the organization, was one of the few things that could actually throw him out of his perpetual fatigue and depression into something else.

Like anger.

"My chairman gave me an assignment," was his answer, curt and 'professional' for a given value of professional.

[notrosecolored]

Scott's eyebrows both appeared over the rim of his glasses at that response, but he didn't comment on it at all, actually. "That's your business, too," he said, with an amount of blandness that would have made dry toast seem exciting.

Would he walk away from an assignment Charles gave him? Not easily. He was determined to get the kid out. Not so much because he'd been given an order these days, but because that kid needed to be helped and helping mutants was what he did.

He'd do it, though. There were days he'd walk away from the whole fucking thing, and days - more of them as he got older, as he buried more of his kids and teammates - that he questioned Charles. He believed in what they were doing, still but he wasn't quite so sure how they were doing it.

None of it would stop him helping a kid, though.

[granularity]

Sand wasn't a good little soldier, hadn't been for a long time, at least not in his own head. How he acted and how he felt, how he restrained himself and hid his pain, hid his wounds, hid the strain... Sand, frankly, was a mess in a lot of ways. A mess in a mask and there might be the answer Scott was looking for.

But arguing or making arrangements was one thing; flat walking out on an assignment was another, at least in his books. Especially something like this.

He reached over, tried to sip at his coffee again, found it was empty, breathed out a low sigh and put a hand through his hair.

"No one works me to the bone but myself," he said after a moment. "And I take my responsibilities... seriously."

And he wouldn't actually say so, but it was almost abundantly clear that a good portion of that was because he literally had nothing else.